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Warrior tactics
Introduction The topic of the "best" tactics for a Warrior seems to generate more heat than other WoW debates. As is usual when this happens, a lot of the heat is thrown between people who are not always talking about the same thing. You can't really have the "best" warrior until you answer the question, "Best at what?" As with other classes, there is no one correct path for a warrior, except perhaps the path that is the most fun for the player; though in high level (endgame) instances and in raids the warrior's teammates will have particular expectations. A word about equipment The importance of good equipment for a warrior cannot be overstated. Other damage-dealing classes will often outdamage warriors. This is especially true as players approach level 60. The warrior does not gain significant damage output as he or she advances in level. This is not to say a warrior is not a dangerous opponent, and indeed the warrior talent tree has many damage-enhancing options, but warriors do not have "super abilities" like the rogue's Cold Blood + Eviscerate or a mage's powerful area effect spells. Offsetting this is the fact that warriors are allowed to use the widest selection of equipment in the game. This allows them to move between specialties more effectively than other classes. It is common for high-level warriors to maintain different sets of gear, e.g. one specifically for tanking and another for PvP (often along with macros to switch between them). By selecting equipment carefully the warrior can more than compensate for the lack of super-DPS abilities enjoyed by other classes. Plate equipment in particular can offer the most armor, the highest bonuses to traits (Strength, Agility, Stamina, etc.), and the best bonuses to combat skills -- often simultaneously on a single item. Since gear is so important, many warriors try to build a full armor set to take advantage of the extra set bonuses. The set bonuses can be generic, or be specific to a particular type of activity. The Battlegear of Wrath, the Field Marshal's Battlegearand the Conqueror's Battlegear are examples of desireable level 60+ sets. The heavy reliance on good equipment also means that the warrior is one of the most expensive and time-consuming classes to equip. The adage that "warriors are only as good as their gear" is not entirely correct, but there is more than a kernel of truth there. You may end up buying much of your equipment as you level in the auction house as well as spending a lot of time grinding for gear in instances. At level 60, the problem only compounds as needs increase, as tanks usually need not only high stats and armor, but also defense and resistances, and often many sets of armor for different raiding situations. Since warriors can learn many different kinds of weapons, it benefits a warrior to skill up as many weapons as possible, because one never knows what will drop in an instance. This means keeping and swapping out a large number of weapons as well as having the best armor available. Ultimately your equipment should be chosen for the role your warrior intends to fill. Warrior Roles Warriors can be roughly divided into at least three basic concepts, each of which requires a different approach: *Tanking *Off-tanking/DPS *Player versus player Tanking The responsibility of a tank is to entertain the enemy while the rest of the group kills it. A well-outfitted warrior can certainly hit and hurt, but if you are the group's main tank it is not your job to deal the most damage; instead it is to take the most damage. There are two main reasons for this. Most obvious is the fact that if the warrior takes all the damage, no one else will take any, and no one save the Paladin or bear-form Druid can withstand as much as a well-outfitted warrior. Just as importantly, in fact key to the warrior's tanking ability, is the fact that taking damage is how the warrior generates the most Rage -- which is key to being able to keep the enemies focused on the warrior. The more damage the warrior takes, the more rage the warrior builds up, and the more threat-inducing abilities the warrior will be able to use. Tanking is the warrior's signature role in a group because the warrior class is unmatched at it. The descriptions of many of the warrior's abilities and talents refer to the amount of threat that is generated. A tank will normally attempt to generate as much threat as possible among all enemies the group faces. The higher the tank is on an enemy's "threat list", the less likely that enemy will run off to pummel someone else -- the healer, for example. Given the warrior's ability to wear extremely tough armor, to build up a huge amount of health (through Stamina), and to build up a lot of aggro (threat) with all enemies in a fight, the warrior can be an ideal tank. Warriors choosing to play this role in a group should focus on equipment and talents that emphasize threat generation, armor (as well as blocking, dodging, and parrying), and stamina. Warriors who tank generally use the Defensive stance, and emphasize the Protection talent tree. This combination helps the warrior generate more threat and tolerate more punishment, both essential tank duties. If you will play the main tank then don't try to compete with other classes in your group as a damage dealer. You should instead concentrate on keeping the enemies focused on you. It is your responsibility to make sure each enemy considers you a serious threat as quickly as possible. This means switching targets, if necessary, to deliver threat-producing blows. A warrior will often switch to each enemy in turn at the start of a fight, building up threat with each (usually with abilities like Sunder Armor), before finally settling on one for the kill. Area-of-effect threat generation abilities such as Demoralizing Shout are also quite useful. Producing threat on all enemies is important, because healing generates threat on all nearby targets, and keeping their healers alive is a warrior's most important job. For more information see Tanking. For a much more thorough analysis of threat management, see Formulas:Aggro. Tanking is a concept that has meaning only in PvE groups. It has no meaning for solo play, and in PvP the opposing players will usually not fall for it. ;) Off-Tanking Off tanking is a general term for "keeping a monster busy" while the party is focusing DPS on the main threat. Off tanks can be Warriors, Paladins, Druids in bear form, or Hunter or Warlock pets. Off tanking usually happens when a party is attempting kill a group of enemies with more than one serious threat. While the main tank is busy holding aggro on the main threat, the off tank makes sure any secondary threats don't attack the healers and casters. Player Versus Player Generally speaking, a Warrior's role in player versus player is to engage and destroy the enemy in melee combat, ideally with a healer on hand to assist. Properly backed up with a healer (or two) a Warrior can become a fearsome killing machine - as the enemy attacks the Warrior, he takes damage, but also gains Rage. The damage is healed, but the Rage remains, allowing the Warrior to perform more powerful attacks and do more damage. Without a friendly healer nearby however, warriors are often at a disadvantage, especially versus ranged damage types. Thus an excellent tactic in group player versus player combat is to stay with friendly casters and healers and protect them from melee types like Rogues - and other Warriors. see Warrior PvP General Tactics Melee Range and Movement (Root/Snare) *"Stun" Abilities prevent you from doing anything at all. Can't Move, Attack, Cast spells. *"Root" Abilities are things that keep you from moving only. *"Snare" Abilities are things that slow your movement speed. Anti-Root: Warriors must be particularly ready to prevent root actions, which can effectively prevent melee combat, taking away the primary means by which the warrior inflicts both effects and damage to the opponent. Common Root Abilities: *Net-o-matic *Large Rope Net *Mage Ability: Frost Nova *Druid Ability: Nature's Grasp *Druid Ability: Entangling Roots Common Root Counters: *Free Action Potion *Gnome Ability: Escape Artist *Spider Belt *Ornate Mithril Boots Gnome escape artist is very useful if you are trapped or rooted. This does not work when you are frozen though. Free Action Potions are the best -- 30 seconds with the user immune to both root AND snare. However, the potions do not dispel effects that are already active. Drawbacks include cost (1 gold each?) as they are consummable, shared potion cooldown with rage/heal potions. (Note: as of game patch 1.7, Free Action Potions will be able to be dispelled, and their reagents easier to find, which may lower costs as well. - Solaerl) Spider Belt and Ornate Mithril Boots must be equipped before the battle begins, as you cannot change armor while in combat. On the positive side, these provide you with 5 seconds of immune to root only (not snare). The cooldown timers are not shared, but they are each long -- 30 minutes of cooldown before the next usage. Other drawbacks include a 30-second delay from the time that you first equip these to when their ability can be used, and bonuses that you are giving up (additional armor, or +stats) as tradeoff for the ability. If you have closed to within melee range on a druid, it may be better to use your anti-root effect before you become rooted, because if it takes you 0.5 seconds to react to the root, that will typically be enough time for the enemy to get out of melee range (even snared). Druids may have nature's grasp, which is an ability that causes anyone who hits them to have a chance of becoming rooted (doesn't apply if your 5-second immunity to root is active). Managing melee distance falls into two categories -- obtaining melee distance when not in range, and keeping melee range once you've got it. A warrior has only these abilities to affect combat distance/manuevering: *1. Charge (use only once, before combat) *2. Intercept (30sec cooldown, 25sec/20sec with 1/2 talent points) *3. Piercing Howl (daze all enemies in an area. daze=50% move speed. lasts 6 seconds) *4. Hamstring (reduce to 50% of normal move speed for 15 seconds. has a 5/10/15% chance to root your opponent for 5 seconds, with 1/2/3 talent points) *5. non-warrior specific items, such as Large Rope Net or Gnomish Net-o-Matic Projector. Piercing Howl seems to have a very small range, and one must spend talent points to get this ability. It is best used when trying to escape from a crowd, and then it is usually only good in PvE, where the enemy turns around and gives up the chase more easily than a real player. Charge can only be used at the start of combat (if the warrior initiates battle). Therefore, warriors are really only left with intercept when out of, and hamstring when in, melee range. Simply put, an enemy should always be afflicted with Hamstring. An opponent should be Hamstringed BEFORE disarm, to help ensure melee range is maintained while the warrior has an advantage. This may be less important against Rogues, if you can avoid their slowing poisons by disarm them first. Intercept is to be used to re-engage once the warrior is out of melee range. It has a significantly large cooldown, and requires a minimum opponent distance. Intercept causes a 3-second stun which is enough time for the warrior to use an ability or two after melee range has been re-established. Hamstring should always be used to ensure that the opponent does not get away, or at least get away too quickly in these situation. Intercept will interrupt spellcasting, and should be used to do so if at all possible. Intercept is best used defensively, as in a counterattack or response to, when a spellcaster is casting a large-mana spell (that is worth interrupting). Healing classes like Priests, Druid, and Paladins should have their healing spells interrupted, and Damage Dealing classes like Mage and Warlock should have their largest attack spells interrupted. Against most spellcasters, the warrior must become aware of what spells are being cast by the motions and colors of the caster. Green usually signifies a healing spell, and are often key spells to interrupt. However, mage and warlock classes do not have healing spells, and their large damage should be targetted for interrupt. Counterattacks or Opportunistic Abilities Warriors are a "reactive" class. Their most powerful abilities are enabled by situational or chance happenings of combat, and since these opportunities have several requirements such as stance, weapon, melee range, time window, and rage, correct usage of a warrior is complex. Given the time-constraints to react, pre-planning (macro setup and strategy) are required for success. The first 4 abilities are critical for all warriors, but by far, overpower is a warrior's greatest ability. It should be used whenever it is enabled by an opponent's dodge. Overpower is so good that it is often worthwhile to dual wield in order to gain more opportunities for the opponent to dodge. Its +50% chance to crit (with 2 talent points) means that at level 60, a warrior overpower will deal a pessimistic damage of 300 damage against a plate wearer when it doesn't crit, but 600-800 when it does, which is quite often. One User Interface named Flexbar has been configured like this so that a big "overpower" button floats above your warrior's head. It is semi-transparent until your opponent dodges, at which point it lights up. Execute also regularly does huge damage and is next in line for should be used whenever possible. This hits normally for 500-700 damage, and I've seen crits over 2000. In the table below, stances are B=Battle, D=Defensive, Z=Berserker. Spell Interruption It should be noted that melee spell interruption abilities Pummel and Shield Bash share a common cooldown. Therefore, it is not possible to prevent a caster from casting one class of spells, since the prevention portion of the ability lasts 6 seconds, but the ability to interrupt has a cooldown of 12 seconds (assuming the warrior has enough rage to perform the action). This is where the warriors secondary interrupts become very important. These secondary interrupts include intimidating shout (you'll need to re-target), intercept, concussion blow, and revenge. The Tauren special ability War Stomp is also an excellent spell breaker. Keeping a spellcasting class locked out of a particular class of spellcasting is a key to winning. Skills For discussions, advice and strategies relating to the many and diverse individual Warrior Abilities, see the entries listed from the Abilities page, here. Talent Strategies In addition to choosing a talent mix that matches your main role (see above), there are a few general things to know about spectific talents: Last Stand: You lose the full amount of health you gain from it afterwards (it will NOT kill you but it will drop you to one hit point as it wears off). An additional use for Last Stand is to give healers an extra few seconds to catch up on healing while grouping. Improved Shield Block: It's only worth putting 1 point into this skill. General PvE Tactics The warrior is designed to take a lot of punishment from mobs while dealing decent amounts of damage. At the beginning, the warrior is limited to a few abilities, namely Heroic Strike, rend, and charge. The typical strategy is to charge an enemy, rend them, and do heroic strikes until they fall. This changes as more abilities and stances are added to the warrior's repertoire. Unlike other classes, the warrior needn't upgrade some of his abilities. These are Mocking Blow, Revenge, Overpower, Thunder Clap, Shield Bash, and Cleave. These should only be upgraded if you want to tank at any time. Higher levels on these skills will generate more threat, which is instrumental in the act of tanking. PvE Grouping While grouping the warrior's primary function is to act as tank for the team. The warrior must attempt to draw as much as aggro from the mobs while still keeping himself from taking too much damage. The two most common types of PvE builds are defensive tanks and tactical builds. A defensive tank will specialize in survivability and defensive stance and he will acquire most of his talents from the protection tree. The difficulty of being a defensive tank is attempting to hold aggro long enough for a sufficient amount of rage to build allowing the warrior to still hold aggro. A tactical build constantly changes stances throughout battles and must have a set of both a 2h weapon (two 1h weapons for fury warriors) and 1h+shield combo. A tactical build is much more frantic and cash dependent to play. see Tanking See Also *Warrior: Working with Other Classes *Warrior: How to Kill a... *Warrior: How to Help a... Category:Tactics Category:Warriors